Well I actually was able to get the other computer to allow me to download these pictures from onto a zip drive. I am still learning how to download so these are actually not in order.

This is one of the beginning photos of the pond you saw in the previous post.

Notice the waterfall Jimmy built. The rocks you see around the base of the pond are the concrete sacks that had gotten wet at a contractors place.

Another of the pond and waterfall

Jimmy went scavaging through the woods behind our home to find some of the rocks you see in the bottom of the pond. Most of them came from the yard though in our clean up efforts.

The pond was originally going to be placed in the Northeast corner of the yard. Jimmy decicded that it would look better in the Southeast corner. Turns out this was a better choice because there is less sunlight in the area he moved it to.

The picture above was taken shortly after the first terrace was completed. You should notice the drop off from where the top of the wall to where he was standing when he took the picture.

Picture of the lower portion of the yard before any work had been done. You do see one small section of a bed that Jimmy put in shortly after we moved in. He did this because we had so many plants that we were moving from the other place. Only took one moving van to move everything in the house, but it took two trips in the moving van and one with Randy's pickup to get most of the plants and flowers.

I don't want to bore anyone with redundant descriptions, but I am so proud of what Jimmy accomplished.

The area above is now where the pond is located. He had marked out where he wanted the base of the second retaining wall to be placed.

Sidney is our Cocker and she was a constant overseer of the project.

Now we get to the first photos taken when we moved into the house. Looking back up the hill you see the slope we were dealing with. Looks so different now and are we both glad.

Another angle in the backyard prior to any work being completed.

Another picture of the lower section of the yard prior to any work.

And another....

This one was taken a few days after we moved in. Jimmy had cleared the fence line along the back of the property and placed an old bench we had brought with us from the other place.

This section of the yard gave us fits with runoff. If you look closely in the bottom left corner of the picture you will see our little pricess, "Baby". She is our Shitzu who belonged to Jimmy's mother before she died.

This final picture gives a kind of overall view of the yard prior to our beginning any real work. In fact if I am not mistaken this one may have been before we actually moved in. Well. I hope I have not bored you all too much with these pictures and again I apologize for the order... Just look from the bottom up and read it again. LOL

Have a great day and wonderful evening...

First Edition

Jimmy and I are not the most prolific writers in the world so do not expect too much in the way of daily updates. I hope that we can update a couple of times a week. We are also new to this blogging idea so be patient.
I have been wanting to start this for awhile now to show off the hard work that Jimmy has put into our backyard. We purchased this home in August, 2008. When we saw the house we fell in love with everything about it from the neighborhood to the yard. The front yard is quite small, however the backyard is very spacious. The back originally was a hill that went almost straight down. When looking at the property we could see the amazing potential that this home could offer.

In this picture you will notice the slope to the left of the pond. This was my least favorite area of the yard. Each time it rained we had rushing rapids going to the bottom of the yard. Now thanks to hard work and dedication we have been able to stop the water from carrying the yard into the alley behind us.

You can see the one of the two benches that were built using the concrete given to us when one of Jimmy's friends grandmother had to remove her pool, patio and walkways.

In this photo you see Jimmy taking a break after some hard work. This photo shows the two sets of stairs he built from railroad ties coming from the patio. Where I am standing taking this photo is about nine feet below the patio (if not more). The work in the yard was slow at first because of the slope. We fell down more than once.

This shot is of the rear of the house. We had been working on getting grass to grow, this is why

you see the straw spread on the hillside. The stone work you see was

placed by Jimmy. The interesting thing about the stone is that it actually is not stone.

Jimmy had a friend whose grandmother was removing a pool, patio and walkway.

They needed to get rid of the concrete and a large amount of dirt. We told them we would take it and the rest is history.

This is a shot of our fish pond that was constructed from a garden tub that

was salvaged from a home that was being torn down.

An interesting note about the stones that you see surrounding the pond is actually

concrete that had been allowed to get wet by a contractor. Jimmy in his

all seeing eye saw the possibility of making something from someone else error.

Second Stair case leading to the lower garden

Jimmy constructed the two center staircases from railroad ties purchased at a

local lumber yard.

The swing set you see in the photo is not ours, it belongs to the neighbors. Jimmy has begun

working on hiding the yards to the left and right of us for privacy and the atmosphere of

out garden.

This is the beginning of the entrance to our garden leaving the back patio.

In closing this first blog entry, I want to say thanks to our GREAT FRIENDS Randy and Jamie http://jandrgardenblog.blogspot.com/ for being a constant encouragement during this process. They have offered many outstanding suggestions and many of the plants that you will see in future posts. The yard is much prettier now that things are blooming and the beds are beginning to establish themselves. We are in the market now for a camera that will take quality photos for all to enjoy. All of the above photos were taken with my phone. We have photos of the yard from before we started on a computer that we seldom use any longer and we will share those eventually.

We almost immediately began terracing the yard. I will upload the photos of the yard before we began working later.